We were asked to entertain at a local supermarket for their carneval children’s competition. There was a competition for the best outfit, and we were to entertain before it started and make balloons afterwards. It was fun for the kids to get out tracts and meet other children, and Cherise got 5th place for her little fairy outfit complete with facepainting. Tomorrow we have another program, and on Tuesday the madness ends, TG. Actually, we’re really thankful for these jobs, seeing as Feb is a bit of a ’slow’ month.
In other news, Jordan talks in sentences now. It’s adorable how he puts words together, and we all have fun just listening to him talk. Sometimes he just says jibberish since everyone else is talking, but at other times, he’s very clear. Like at dinner tonight he said, ‘puppies jumping up on me’ as he tried to enter in on our conversation about our day.
Cherise finished her first three readers this last week, and is making steady progress. She’s gettting the point that reading isn’t just quoting what we read at some point, or making up a story. We played a game where she had to point out the words on a page, which helped her to see similarities in words as well.
Charlotte does very well at remembering all the rules she’s learning. I’m amazed at times when she can remember which word uses which spelling, though there’s not even a rule for it. Like dear and deer. It’s amazing to me how much they pack into first grade. She started with vowels and consonants, now there’s consonant blends, consonant diagraphs, vowel sets, short and long vowels, not to mention question marks, periods, capital and lower case letters, nouns, and then of course addition, subtraction, colen, inches, cm, feet, nickles, dimes, pennies, cents, place value, and number lines. She’s also learned the seasons, weather changes, etc, etc. And this is just what comes to mind this minute! Wow! I’m making an order for next years’ books sometime soon, as I want them here before she’s done with this grade. She’s going through the books really fast, as it’s a lot of review, but review I wanted her to have, as it’s important to me that she gets the fundamentals down pat. Her fun activity now is looking through the new Word program (locked to her age group). Even though she’s read a lot in there, there’s always something new to find, and the format makes reading old material ‘new’. I’m encouraged by her reading comprehension, and often ask her something about what she’s read to make sure she’s getting it, which she usually does.
